The present invention relates generally to Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) technology, and specifically to a system and method for reducing manual requirements for activating such technology.
Remote access and retrieval of data is becoming increasingly popular in data communication. The proliferation of the Internet has provided a vast network of information that is available to the general public. As the Internet grows and technology advances, this information is becoming increasingly voluminous and the details are become increasingly intricate. What used to be mainly text information has grown to include still and moving images as well as sound. The increase in volume of information to be transferred has presented a need for a high-speed Internet connection, since traditional telephone modems communicate at speeds too slow for efficient communication.
One proposal for high-speed communication is the introduction of Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) technology. One of the most attractive features of DSL is that it is implemented using an infrastructure that already exists. DSL shares copper twisted pair lines typically used for telephone communication. However, only a small portion (0 to 4 kHz) of the available bandwidth of the twisted pair line is used for Plain Old Telephone Service (POTS). DSL takes advantage of the available frequency spectrum from 4 kHz to approximately 1.1 MHz for transmitting data.
A DSL modem is a device that modulates and demodulates signals across a DSL physical interface. An ATU-R modem is located at a customer's site and an ATU-C modem is located in a central office (CO) or remote terminal (RT) of a loop provider. When the modems initialize at power-up, they attempt to train and synchronize their signals with each other.
The ATU-C is administratively enabled or disabled as a part of managing a network element in which it resides. The ATU-C is administratively enabled if a DSL subscriber has requested service on the line connected to that ATU-C. If there is no DSL subscriber on that link, then the ATU-C is disabled.
Referring to FIG. 1, a typical DSL data service connection to the Internet is illustrated generally by numeral 100. A plurality of ATU-Rs 102 are coupled to associated ATU-Cs 104 via twisted pairs 106. The ATU-Cs 104 are located in a remote terminal or CO 110 and are coupled to an access network 108. The access network 108 couples the ATU-Cs 104 to the Internet 112 via a gateway 109. An element management system (EMS) 114 is coupled between an operations support system (OSS) 116 and the access network 108.
While the following implementation specifically describes an Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) access network, it will be apparent to a person skilled in the art that the access network could be other networks such as Synchronous Optical Network (SONET), Internet Protocol (IP), and the like. In order for a customer to request DSL service on a particular line, the following procedure occurs. The OSS 116, which is partially manually operated and partially computerized, determines whether service is available for the line and optionally determines whether the twisted pair has availability for the required DSL bandwidth. Using the EMS 114, the ATU-C 104 is provisioned with DSL service data and the ATU-C 104 is administratively enabled. Using the EMS 114 and/or a network management system (NMS), a circuit (such as an ATM permanent virtual circuit (PVC)) is provisioned from the ATU-C 104 through the ATM access network 108 to the Internet 112 via the gateway 109, such as a subscriber management system (SMS). A PVC is a software-defined logical connection/path in a network. This path is illustrated in FIG. 1 by dotted lines. For example, the PVC connects the customer to the customer's Internet Service Provider's point of presence on the Internet.
The customer installs the ATU-R 102 and connects an Internet Protocol (IP) device such as a personal computer (PC), Voice over ATM integrated access device (IAD), or Voice over IP (VoIP) IAD. The ATU-R 102 powers up and attempts to train with the ATU-C 104. After a successful training, the ATU-R 102 typically uses ATM configurations such as virtual circuit identifiers (VCIs) and their associated traffic characteristic, layer 2+ configurations such as a Point-to-Point Protocol over Ethernet (PPPoE) related configuration, or such as a PPPoE user id (e.g., User@isp.com) and password, and may also require layer 3 configuration data. (The “layers” refer to the 7-layer Open Source Initiative [OSI] model.) The customer can then start IP traffic. For example, a World Wide Web (WWW) homepage can be downloaded using hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP)/Transmission Control Protocol (TCP)/Internet Protocol (IP). That is, the customer is connected to the Internet.
In DSL networks as described above, the process for configuring DSL service is very laborious and time-consuming. Specifically, some of the steps involved may include order entry, loop qualification, provisioning DSL interfaces, provisioning ATM virtual circuits to the voice or data network, provisioning Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP) user id's, provisioning internal network tunnels, and the like. Each of these steps requires manual action at the EMS 114, NMS or OSS 116, and takes time. This translates into high labor costs to activate service, and a high opportunity cost of slow service activation. Furthermore, the carrier—not the customer—controls all of the main steps.
Therefore, there is a need for a system and method that provides enhanced activation of DSL subscriber lines. It is an object of the present invention to obviate or mitigate at least some of the above-mentioned disadvantages.